Name's Jason Thibeault. I'm an IT guy, skeptic, feminist, gamer and atheist, and love OSS, science of all stripes (especially space-related stuff), and debating on-line and off. I enjoy a good bit of whargarbl now and again, and will occasionally even seek it out. I am also apparently responsible for the death of common sense on the internet. My bad.

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EVENTS

The further hyper-skepticism stalling our conversation

Last year, when the bugs crawling out from under the rock that had been overturned several months prior by Rebecca Watson continued unabated, and pretty much everyone was shocked that that many creepie-crawlies resided in our vaunted skeptical community, I wrote a series of posts on the whole ordeal called The Problem with Privilege. One of those posts dealt with the rampant and repeated demands for evidence regarding the incident that Rebecca had called creepy — as though recounting a story and saying “guys, don’t do that, it’s creepy” was some kind of misandrist clarion call, which must be rebuffed lest it result in fewer pick-up artists getting their dicks wet.

So these trolls, being part of the skeptical community (apparently), used our strengths against us by attacking the claim on its merits, since the claim “I was tipsy in an elevator at 4am and a guy followed me in and asked me to his room” doesn’t meet the high standards of evidence we use in the skeptical community when it comes to extraordinary claims. Never mind that it was a perfectly ordinary claim about someone’s experience with a slightly-offputting person that did not result in any physical harm. Specifically, I characterized this compulsion as hyper-skepticism, along the same lines as 9/11 truthers, birthers, and other conspiracy theorists.

We’re now seeing the exact same tactic being used again in the wake of a conflagration that Jen McCreight accidentally set off when she casually mentioned at the Women In Secularism CFI conference that female speakers occasionally warn one another of potentially creepy male speakers.
Since Stephanie called for real harassment policies to be implemented, and over half a dozen conventions started putting a very good template policy into place in response, real progress has been made on the issue. Progress involving building infrastructure that ameliorates the problem and provides harassment victims with real support. People have come forward with their specific complaints about harassment that had not been reported immediately, supporting the need for these infrastructures — and the hyper-skeptics replied in droves, “but where’s your evidence!?”

In the middle of all this, DJ Grothe, president of JREF, wondered aloud whither all the women were going, and why female TAM registration — while they had made such great inroads at TAM9, after implementing a harassment policy of their own — was way down. He wondered further whether all those women reporting harassment and working to try to get conventions to implement real support structures were, in actuality, driving people away from his vaunted convention.

They meant of course to ask where the evidence was that there was even any harassment that needed addressing, naturally. That was, after all, the point that DJ was trying to make — that point became especially obvious when he claimed that the complaints sounded like “locker room talk”, “rumors”, or discussion of “sexual exploits” that women thereafter regretted. But there’s a really good question that is raised when these folks ask that one in this context: where is the evidence that DJ Grothe used to make the leap that the problem this whole time has been those damned uppity feminists scaring everyone away?

Consider that Melody Hensley put together the apparently awesome Women In Secularism conference, and that those of us in the skeptical community who are not independently wealthy have to consider travel, expenses and vacation time. Single parents, predominantly but not always women, often also have to consider parenting issues — who to get to babysit the kids for the conference while they go get their skeptic on. This means there are large financial and personal hurdles to going to every conference if you’re not making money on the public speaking circuit or a member of an organization yourself, which limits the number or frequency of conventions you can attend. That has the knock-on effect that, when a new conference springs up with a high draw value for the demographic you’re looking to improve, you might see your own numbers erode. I am shocked that DJ did not consider this as a possibility before he decided to throw several women bloggers under that bus.

To the point the trolls are making, about where the evidence is that there’s even a harassment problem at all considering DJ’s “exit survey” from TAM showing no such thing, is a pretty good one. At least, if you only consider the data he’s providing, and do not question the data collection methods and the greater societal problem of harassment and underreporting. See, there’s a serious problem with that, which we can demonstrate (with scientific evidence, no less!), showing women simply putting up with harassment because it’s easier. We have some numbers specifically from the secular community, though there may be those same reporting biases at work there too. Regardless, the numbers show a significantly larger proportion of women than men experiencing harassment, and a very large amount of that being very serious and actionable harassment. So why isn’t it being reported?

Well, because we haven’t made this space safe yet, partly. Not “unsafe” as in you’ll almost certainly get assaulted, but “not safe” as in it is no better than background levels of harassment. The victims of harassment are not reporting it mostly for the same reasons that harassment in society as a whole is drastically underreported. And the reasons in just about every case are the same: power imbalance, fear of retaliation, belief that nothing will come of the report, embarassment.

Pteryxx proves that underreporting is a major issue in a comment xe left at Ophelia’s (with a minor correction in-line at hir request):

All righty… I did some research into the problems with using surveys to determine the prevalence of sexual harassment. Much of what I found was paywalled research. It’s not something that can be done with a general survey not designed for the purpose.

Basically, surveying sexual harassment is difficult *at all* because of pervasive underreporting. As with sexual assault and rape, only a small percentage of incidents are ever reported, for many reasons: the victims are too embarrassed or ashamed, they assume (often rightly) that nothing will be done to address the problem, or they’ve normalized the harm. Fear of retaliation or escalation, while also major factors, probably don’t have much effect on a truly anonymous survey.

This is from page 32 of a 2005, 72-page report on sexual harassment among US college students (it’s big but quite readable):

http://www.aauw.org/learn/research/upload/DTLFinal.pdf

Given the strong reactions to sexual harassment,
we would expect students to report incidents, yet
most do not. More than one-third (35 percent)
tell no one. Almost half (49 percent) confide in
a friend, but only about 7 percent report the
incident to a college employee.

Female students are more likely than male
students to tell someone about sexual harassment,
although they, too, have reservations about
discussing their experiences (see Figure 10).
A common theme among female students is a
feeling of nervousness or discomfort at reporting
something that might not be “a big enough deal.”
One young woman describes an incident that
made her feel “horrible” and “helpless,” but
she didn’t report it because “it didn’t seem to
be that important.”

Also, for a victim to report sexual harassment (or sexual assault, or rape), the person has to first admit that what happened to them WAS harassment, assault, or rape.

Because research has shown that many people are reluctant or unwilling to label even serious unwelcomed behavior (e.g., physical assault of a sexual nature) as sexual harassment, this survey separated questions about respondents’ experiences with unwelcomed sexual behaviors from the question of whether or not they felt they had experienced sexual harassment. The intent was to capture more accurately the occurrence of behaviors without the stigma of the label.

This survey asked about eight types of unwelcomed behavior which may constitute sexual harassment. A majority–52%–of respondents indicated that they had experienced one or more of the eight categories of unwelcomed behavior. Yet, when these responders were asked explicitly about whether they had experienced sexual harassment in the past 10 years at UI, most responders (62%) indicated that they had not been sexually harassed, whereas 24% (805 individuals)) indicated that they considered the unwelcome behavior to be sexual harassment. This represented 26% of female and 19% of male responders.

It’s not just that DJ Grothe’s survey fails to capture the incidence of sexual harassment. ANY form of self-reporting will fail to do so, as long as sexual aggression combined with victim-blaming is culturally normal, particularly when internalized so that the victims blame themselves. Sexual harassment and violence can only be addressed in a supportive environment – otherwise, the vast majority of harassed persons will simply remain silent.

If a culture exists at DJ Grothe’s organization that is not supportive of victims, as may be indicated by his recent remarks, then that culture could have DIRECTLY contributed to the observed low reporting rate. One instance of a witnessed, publicly reported incident has already been shown to have gone unrecorded within TAM’s harassment reporting system.

Thus, the low reporting rate at TAM may be largely a RESULT, not a cause, of DJ’s (publicly articulated) perception that sexual harassment is not a problem under his purview.

–

*note: I decided (with reservations) to stay with the term “victim” throughout to keep focus on the concept of victim-blaming. Not all recipients of sexual harassment consider themselves victimized by it.

Underreporting is a problem because spaces aren’t safe. Declaring a space safe by fiat won’t work, even if you’ve attempted to enforce the policy really well during certain incidents, and if the data you’ve collected says nobody “felt unwelcome” because you never aggregated in those incidents in the first place — because you’re going to have a major problem with that data when someone comes forward to contradict it. Especially if you thereafter try to gaslight that person and convince them that there was never any such event. The data collection methodology was simply insufficient here, and incidents apparently happened and were dealt with in realtime that were never documented thereafter and thus never showed up in DJ’s numbers.

We have a manifold problem with harassment in the skeptical community, one that won’t be solved by ignoring the fact that they’re plugging their ears every time someone actually proffers evidence to meet the trolls’ demands. The only path forward, as far as I can see, is to steamroll the trolls by moving forward with implementing strong anti-harassment policies at conventions, leaving these trolls to deal with the consequences despite their cries that we’re implementing some sort of Taliban-like puritanism (heh), and doing so in such a way that everyone’s well aware that there will be consequences for violating those policies, and that victims will be protected.

THAT is how you make a space safe. Certainly not by answering every disingenuous call for evidence, despite that being our natural compulsion as a community — we’re skeptics after all — and especially not when you can legitimately say “Objection! Asked and answered!” Preferably with a link back to this post, if you could be so kind.

Of course, you could also take the tactic favoured by Stephanie Zvan — ask the trolls exactly what sort of evidence it would take to convince them that the person they’re trolling experienced what they say they experienced. When they inevitably clam up, THEN point them here.

Seriously, male voice? You’re citing A) one single study, that B) specifically addresses workplace harassment. You can’t take what one study has to stay about workplace harassment and assume that it is representative of sexual harassment across the board.

Also, your one study only examined two of the most male-dominated professions, the military and legal fields. It is completely within the realm of possibility that 90% harassment is accurate for those fields, and that even that number is underreported.

This is not evidence against anything that Jason wrote.

What the fuck is it with “skeptics” like you that disregard all notions of critical evaluation when it comes to addressing internal problems?

@ male voice: You misrepresented the study. Case in point of the underreporting phenomenon.

When you ask women if they have been sexually harassed 90 % say yes.

The study did not “ask women if they have been sexually harassed”. The study FOUND that 90% of women have been sexually harassed. How? By asking them to report specific behaviors they had experienced, behaviors that qualify as sexual harassment.

Sex-Based Harassment. To assess unwanted sexbased
experiences in the military, surveys contained an
updated version of the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire-
Department of Defense (SEQ-DoD) developed by Fitzgerald
and colleagues (1999; see also Stark et al., 2002).
Participants described how often over the prior 12 months
they had experienced various forms of unwanted, uninvited
‘‘sex/gender related talk and/or behavior’’ involving military
personnel, civilian employees, or contractors. They
responded on a 5-point scale ranging from 0 = never to
4 = very often.

Women, if single parents, often also have to consider parenting issues — who to get to babysit the kids for the conference while they go get their skeptic on.

I’m sorry to nitpick here, but could you change this to something along the lines of: “Single parents, the vast majority of whom are women, often also have to consider… etc.”

I’m not trying to deny that women bear the brunt of this problem, and as such it was totally appropriate for you to bring it up in this context. But single-parent dads are a group that tends to get kind of fucked over too, and as written the quoted sentence kind of unnecessarily disses them. You can still make your point about how this is an issue which disproportionately effects women, without contributing to the invisibility of single-parent fathers.

Providing evidence doesn’t work anyway. I had a baffling conversation with a commenter yesterday who said that since Rebecca talked about her experiences with the atheist/skeptic movement in her interview she was also talking about TAM since TAM is part of the movement and her harassment (which is clearly evidenced in primary sources all over twitter, reddit, blogs, etc. and is accessible to anyone with an internet connection) is irrelevant because her experiences with the atheist/skeptic movement have nothing to do with TAM.

I’m wondering if the people who attacked Rebecca Watson as unprofessional and a bully for naming Stef McGraw by name will now do the same to DJ Grothe. After all, their only problem with Watson was the power imbalance between her and McGraw. With Grothe being the president of JREF and naming names to a national newspaper, he would be more powerful within the community than any of the women he named by name (as it’s been pointed out, there are men he could have named but didn’t).

So either DJ Grothe is an unprofessional bully, or Rebecca Watson isn’t. Anything else from the people who attacked Watson for that is hypocrisy.

Think this through, friend: If between 80-100% of women have been sexually harrassed (depending on the study you cite) and if better-designed studies almost invariably end up with higher reports (according to links Pterryx has cited elsewhere), if between 15-25% of women report daily harrassment (depending on the study you cite – and again, the number increases as the design improves) why are the courts not swamped with harrassment cases?

Simple: The overwhelming majority of these cases are not reported to the authorities. They might be reported to surveyors with special training to ask questions in a manner designed to get the most accurate response, but they overwhelming majority of sex crimes and sexual harrassment are not reported ot the authorities.

This is supported by studies: According to this report by Statistics Canada, there were about 512,000 instances of sexual assault in 2004, compared with 24,200 reports by police in 2007. If we assume that rates of sex crimes are stable year-to-year (which I admit is a big assumption, but it’s one borne out by the report linked above), that works out to about 5% of sexual assaults being reported to police. In a given year, roughly 2% of Canadians will be subject to sexual assault, the majority of which will be women. Sexual harrassment statistics are harder to find because the area is not studied as much, but studies on street harrassment suggest that sexual harrassment is far more common than sexual assault, with the most common subset (street harrassment) being reported by 100% of women in some areas, and between 15-25% of women reporting street harrassment daily. Sexual harrassment is not its own crime in Canada, so it’s impossible to tell how many of these cases are reported to police (I’m no lawyer, but my understanding is that when it rises to criminality, it’s covered under existing criminal charges such as harassment, vandalism, assault, and sexual assault as appropriate, and this makes it pretty much impossible to get stats on police-reported sexual harassment). However, given known incidence rates and the fact that our civil and criminal courts are not overflowing with claims of harrassment, it’s reasonable to assume that even fewer cases of sexual harassment get reported to police than sexual assaults.

Why? Because women rightly assume we won’t be taken seriously. Because women rightly fear reprisal, not just by the guilty party, but also by those who know the offender. Case in point: in my high school, two girls accused a teacher who had a rep for being a creeper of sexual harrassment and assault. Those girls had vicious rumors spread about them. They were made out to be sluts, liars, whores, prostitutes, etc. The school officials found excuses to keep them in for detention, and to suspend them. Eventually, the girls agreed not to press criminal charges, but the damage was done: Most of their friends had abandoned them, and their school record was hurt with low grades they didn’t deserve and suspensions assigned arbitrarily. I know that one of them was unable to get into university without taking a few years at a community college first because of it. I didn’t know the other girl as well so I’m not sure if she suffered career setbacks as a result. It didn’t just have a chilling effect on the female students: A year later, a female substitute was harassing male students in class, and nobody reported her (myself included, even though I was witness to her harassment of them) because they remembered what happened to those girls.

Women also don’t report because we rightly assume the authorities we report to will be prone to middle-of-the-road fallacies and thus will want to blame us. Because we don’t want to deal with the stress of pressing charges. Because we rightly assume that third parties who weren’t there and don’t have our life experiences will second-guess our every action in response. Because we know that even if we report, odds are fairly substantial that nothing significant will come of it, given what we observe in the criminal courts regarding sexual assault (see the report above).

There’s a lot of reasons why we don’t report stuff that happens, and none of them are because it never actually happened.

Well, because we haven’t made this space safe yet, partly. Not “unsafe” as in you’ll almost certainly get assaulted, but “not safe” as in it is no better than background levels of harassment.

And I’m confused as to how this came to be solely about harassment. These organizations, and the movement more generally, are not any sort of safe space when the attitude of organizational leaders is something like, “We have a policy now and we did a damn survey and that trumps your experiences so shut up women because you’re not helping.” It’s not a safe space when women publicly talking about the problems of harassment and misogyny are accused by prominent people in the movement of doing it as some sort of self-promotion or drama-stirring for attention or blog hits, or when the behavior cited in their examples is ignored, dismissed, or excused. It’s not a safe space when women who talk about these issues publicly then have to face a stream of vicious, misogynistic attacks and slurs. It’s not a safe space when women who show that claims about the absence of harassment are false and that the people making them should know that are treated to nonsense like “Had we known (had you let us know) we would have called security and removed him from TAM, not just removed him from the speakers reception because he didn’t belong there.” It’s not a safe space when people, including here, let their blog threads become a place where the pitizens (who could very well show up at events) can engage in more character assassination.

Grothe has to realize that it’s not only harassment – which he doesn’t seem to regard with due seriousness and compassion, in any case – but the unsafe environment to which his words contribute that makes women see these spaces, including but not limited to TAM and other events, as unsafe.

I was just saying this on Twitter last night to Stephanie and others, but to me, I just don’t understand why this is a big issue.

Just implement a fucking policy, and train your staff and volunteers. Cover. Your. Fucking. Ass. This shit is very legal and very real. It doesn’t matter if there’s been 0 reported incidents, my experience is that we need to protect ourselves anyway.

That only applies if you think Stephanie/Jen/all the other women who’ve reported on this are liars, AND if you think the statistics and evidence are wrong, you still need to have policies and training, because ONE incident is too many.

SZ: Which skeptical or atheist meetings did have any kind of policy up until two weeks ago?

anon: TAM (links to the blog post)

SZ: Of course. Any others?

SZ: Also, it’s worth remembering that TAM put that policy in place in response to threats against Rebecca. You know, as long as you’re just trying to figure stuff out about how harassment policies and skeptic and atheist events interact.

…My first impression is that maybe that harassment policy was just enacted as a knee-jerk response to solve/cover up the problem, without anyone actually training or studying how to carry it out. That would explain the lack of proper reporting.

SC: You’re absolutely right that it shouldn’t only be about harassment. I assume it’s all about harassment because of the timing — WISCFI > Jen > Stephanie’s call for policies to be implemented > DJ’s request for why women are abandoning TAM > DJ gets the answer he doesn’t like.

The fact that TAM’s harassment policy was put into place as a reaction to more harassment that Rebecca Watson faced is very telling indeed. I strongly suspect Pteryxx’s analysis of the reasons why at 18 is exactly right.

If the goal is to make a safe space — where women can discuss this harassment without being gaslighted or victim-blamed or other such nonsense — then we have to take that into account as well. First step, though, is still to implement anti-harassment policies so we can put some teeth behind our demands that harassment end.

There’s also the issue that accusations like DJ’s make it sound like women are bad skeptics. When he says shame on people like Rebecca for stirring things up with mere rumors, he’s also saying he thinks little of the reasoning of all the women who supposedly buy into those rumors. That women are easily led and panic rather than question dubious stories.

DJ’s is not a position one arrives at by assuming most women interested in skepticism work to be critical thinkers. It’s not something that takes into consideration that women might be making rational decisions about staying away from cons based on more than “stories”—such as seeing for ourselves the reaction to Rebecca saying, “Guys, don’t do that.”

It’s not like DJ is the only one with this attitude. Why would I want to attend a con for skepticism where just being a woman means I have to somehow climb up out of the pit of people’s disregard before my skepticism is acknowledged? That’s not a safe space, either.

I suspect we will see conferences with strong anti-harassment policies and clearly welcoming and supportive environments for women succeeding relative to those that don’t. No amount of shouting and spitting into the wind is going to get women to go places they don’t want to.

I also think most guys would prefer an environment with plenty of comfortable, relaxed and confident women to one with dwindling numbers who are always on guard. I know I do. And I’d just as soon not have to deal with the guy who don’t.

The “skeptics” can nit pick the reports and play with statistics all they want. Anti-harassment and safe space policies will be gears in the spiral ratchet that inexorably moves us in the right direction. Funny thing is the more the trolls troll and the nitpickers pick nits the faster the ratchet turns.

But that someone has to be a reasonable person for that to work. Otherwise you get Christians complaining that it’s harassment to say “Happy holidays” or some such crap. (Or atheists ditto “Merry Christmas” if you prefer. Either one; both.)

argh, I missed “Steph”. Seriously, joejoe, if you can’t even figure out that other people (that includes women) get to keep all the syllables to their names, you’re really not qualified to decide what counts as harassment.

If you have the capacity to understand the subtle (and often not so subtle) negotiation of basic social contracts regarding appropriate behavior in any other context, then you posess likewise the capacity to understand issues of harassment, and what does or does not constitute inappropriate behavior in that vein.

There are multiple posts on FTB explaining this to you. Feel free to read them.

SC: You’re absolutely right that it shouldn’t only be about harassment. I assume it’s all about harassment because of the timing — WISCFI > Jen > Stephanie’s call for policies to be implemented > DJ’s request for why women are abandoning TAM > DJ gets the answer he doesn’t like.

Sorry – I didn’t mean to give the impression that I thought you specifically were narrowing it to that.

The fact that TAM’s harassment policy was put into place as a reaction to more harassment that Rebecca Watson faced is very telling indeed.

Yes, and it draws out a little more specifically what I was getting at. In addressing harassment, it’s good and necessary for these policies to be put in place, publicized, and enforced. But a safe space involves more than a reduced danger of physical, in-person harassment. It’s not just a space relatively free of harassment in that sense, but one that doesn’t feel hostile, in which women can feel comfortable expressing their views and talking about their experiences without worrying about having to deal with the sorts of reactions we’ve seen over the past year. Knowing that the policy was established because of and enforced for that guy doesn’t make what he said disappear, and it was just one example in a wave of misogyny. As A. Noyd alluded to above while making a different point, “It’s not something that takes into consideration that women might be making rational decisions about staying away from cons based on more than “stories”—such as seeing for ourselves the reaction to Rebecca saying, “Guys, don’t do that.”

If the goal is to make a safe space — where women can discuss this harassment without being gaslighted or victim-blamed or other such nonsense — then we have to take that into account as well.

I would think that is the goal, yes, but it’s about being able to discuss more than just harassment.

First step, though, is still to implement anti-harassment policies so we can put some teeth behind our demands that harassment end.

As long as it’s recognized that it’s only one step, only one part of what’s needed, especially if the statements from the people most responsible for enacting the policies are themselves contributing to a hostile and dismissive atmosphere that many women don’t want to put up with if they can avoid it.

One kind of harassment deniers, and I’ll count Grothe amongst them, is simply totally fucking unaware about the level of sexual harassment women actually encounter. Because they themselves never pinched a butt, they actually don’t think it ever happens.
It happens so often that I’ll sometimes have forgotten before I get to mention it to my husband in the evening. Because it was just another guy who made a stupid remark, who “accidentially” brushed against me, who stared down my shirt.

The second kind are those who deny that those things actually are harassment. I hope that Grothe at least isn’t one of them.
By now he and hs pals should look very hard at who supports them and what those people write.
Then he should weep a bit and then think hard.

As for repoting: I can drill a hole into my knee: same amount of pain, same effect.

Google is your friend. The link is to job-related sexual harassment, but the below will give you some idea of what is involved:

Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature.

Unwelcome is the critical word. Unwelcome does not mean “involuntary.”

A victim may consent or agree to certain conduct and actively participate in it even though it is offensive and objectionable. Therefore, sexual conduct is unwelcome whenever the person subjected to it considers it unwelcome. Whether the person in fact welcomed a request for a date, sex-oriented comment, or joke depends on all the circumstances.

No more terrible than your gainful employment or participation in society as a whole, joejoe. If you think it’s terrible to try to protect people from harassment, you are evidently neither participating in society or gainfully employed. Can you see why people are being hostile to your disingenuous questions intended to suggest that harassment is less important than your right to cold-proposition or corner people drunkenly.

I dropped the first joe to make a point; I’m glad you got that point. Now could you get the other ones people are making, or do I need to end your participation in this as one of those self-same hyperskeptics who are trying to stall this conversation?

I stare at people, directly in their eyes or mouth. One could say I leer at them, especially when they talk. I need to, there is no way around this as I have a compulsion to do it.

Is this harassment? Even if they tell me to stop, I simply cannot without a severe detrimental effect to my enjoyment of the event.

Why must I do this? Because I am deaf and I hide it pretty well (I can speak like someone who isn’t deaf apparently). I gain 80% of what is being conveyed through lipreading and body language. No way around it. I know some people find it unsettling, some have complained about it to event organizers. But what am I going to do about it?

If events start applying some slippery slope, knee-jerk policies it wont take into consideration people like myself. But who wants the deaf guy who stares at people at these events?

People can tell the difference between being harassed and having someone lip-read you. For instance, harassment usually involves actually mistreating someone. If you, personally, can’t tell the difference between lip-reading and harassing someone, you’re done here, joejoe. You can slippery-slope your way right out the exit. Thanks for playing.

I stare at people, directly in their eyes or mouth. One could say I leer at them, especially when they talk. I need to, there is no way around this as I have a compulsion to do it.

Is this harassment? Even if they tell me to stop, I simply cannot without a severe detrimental effect to my enjoyment of the event.

If you stare at me and I tell you to stop because it’s making me uncomfortable, then the onus is on you to stop staring at me. You, and that’s you, are the one doing the active act of staring at me. My dislike is purely passive and will stop as soon as you stop your action.

If you were touching me and I asked you to stop, would you complain that my request had “a severe detrimental effect to [your] enjoyment of the event”?

Oh for petes sake. joejoe, while I’m no expert I’ve been around a few deaf people, and we TALKED about eye contact and politeness, because I’m on the aspie spectrum and have a hard time making eye contact at all. The deaf women said they can tell just fine whether another deaf person’s staring at their faces or hands (which do most of the talking) or at their breasts.

If someone actually made a complaint about you and it’s followed up, just say “I need to watch people’s faces to understand what they’re saying” and the situation should be handled. IF you’re using it as an excuse to stare below the face, well, there’s no rule that a deaf person can’t be a jerk too.

—

Jason: you should know, accommodation policies for disability state that the disabled person is not generally obligated to provide proof of a disability *on site*. That’s to prevent harassing via intrusive requests for documentation. If disability status actually becomes part of a lawsuit or investigation, *only then* can a court or some such request proof of disability. Volunteers, restaurant employees and such should not be asking for proof.

caveat: again, IANAL, this is what I know from reading brochures at my campus disability office.

And that’s fine, Pteryxx, but the few conventions I’ve been to, I’ve seen deaf folks request front-row seats so they could lip-read. Con goers are usually happy to accomodate.

But there’s still a fuckton of difference between someone lip-reading everyone who’s speaking, and someone running around reading male lips and only leering at women’s tits, then saying “but I’m deaf!” when confronted.

That people who feel perfectly entitled to waste your time asking questions that have easily researched answers never, ever get the point when you waste their time with lmgtfy.com. Because that would require them to actually value the time of anyone else. Also that these same people tend to have problems with the idea of harassment because, of course, they don’t value the autonomy of anyone but themselves either.

Absolutely, Pteryxx, and they shouldn’t even try. It just gets under my skin that someone might try to use their disability as cover — e.g., “you can’t stop me from creeping on someone because I’m deaf”. Especially if the behaviour they’re being told to stop doing has nothing to do with lip-reading.

Stephanie: that’s a very good lesson to take from this, considering it’s also a call-back to the original post where I said that we should stop wasting time answering the same questions over and over when the evidence has already been offered. We are allowed to say “asked and answered”, and should do so and steamroll any further disingenuity.

If women acted on every incident of harassment we suffered, we’d need 30 hours in each day to deal with it. If we put dots of ink on our skin every time some creep crossed a line, we’d look like Smurfette in no time.

(off topic) – A nym too, I learned that blind people call the rest of us “sighties”. Is there a word HoH or D/deaf people call uh. everybody else? (Yes I did just google HoH and why big D – little d deaf – new knowings!)

Let me get this straight,…a deaf guy writes about how in the past his lip/body reading have been misinterpreted as harrassing and the author of this blog simply brushes the guy off as “attempting” a derail,…and says blithely that “People can tell the difference between being harassed and having their lips read.” Is that what I just read happen?

Not long before that same author wrote this,…”To the point the trolls are making, about where the evidence is that there’s even a harassment problem at all considering DJ’s “exit survey” from TAM showing no such thing, is a pretty good one.

Apparently we are to call those with ‘pretty good’ ‘points’ to make trolls. Can you guys ever respond to a good point with calm rationality as opposed to paranoid schizophrenia?

Let’s face it, defining harassment is a real problem, that the big ‘concerners’ need to address so that any resulting policies won’t get innocent people falsely accused.

And this business of calling people with legitimate points to make and threats to block posters, when they are not using profanity, insulting people directly, threatening people, or being redundant is getting pretty scary on some of these blogs. One might call it harassing – if one clearly understood what the definition of the term was.

xtog, why do you keep mischaracterizing things that everyone can see? joejoe never said that had happened to him. In fact, judging by all his questions being hypothetical, he strongly implied it never had.

Not long before that same author wrote this,…”To the point the trolls are making, about where the evidence is that there’s even a harassment problem at all considering DJ’s “exit survey” from TAM showing no such thing, is a pretty good one.

Apparently we are to call those with ‘pretty good’ ‘points’ to make trolls. Can you guys ever respond to a good point with calm rationality as opposed to paranoid schizophrenia?

xtog42: you very helpfully left out the very next sentence. Which I’ll quote back to you now, with bold, so you actually consider reading it this time.

To the point the trolls are making, about where the evidence is that there’s even a harassment problem at all considering DJ’s “exit survey” from TAM showing no such thing, is a pretty good one. At least, if you only consider the data he’s providing, and do not question the data collection methods and the greater societal problem of harassment and underreporting. See, there’s a serious problem with that, which we can demonstrate (with scientific evidence, no less!), showing women simply putting up with harassment because it’s easier.

Now, do you want to apologize to those among us with mental disorders whom you’ve just slurred as though simply disagreeing with your twisted worldview merits a clinical diagnosis??

Also, does anyone else notice that the trolling has another undercurrent which does not befit skepticism? Specfically, the appeal to consequences, suggesting that implementing a harassment policy might result in a slippery-slope toward witchhuntery.

xtog42 has nothing further to say but that this is a “bulletin board” and not a blog, that xe has a master’s degree in psychology which apparently qualifies hir to make diagnoses over the internet or something, and that xe’s very offended that you left off the 42 (despite hir doing it hirself elsewhere). Please see this comment for what indicated to me that xe wasn’t actually interested in discussion and was just wasting our time.

Xe can continue to comment, but I’ll only release comments that actually contribute to the conversation, rather than detract. Yes, at my own personal discretion. (Because this is, in actuality, a blog, not a bulletin board. You’d think a former high school computer teacher might know the difference!)

This may be the wrong place (considering I have trouble keeping in mind where quotes end), but I can think of a reason women may not report sexual harassment even up to sexual assault and rape: they may not realize what falls under the definitions. Even though I knew the incident was wrong, it took me around a decade to realize what a peer once did to me at (high) school (aside from the rape threat) was sexual assault. I reported (to the school and my parents; it went no further) and all I learned was that what he said and did was minor enough not to merit as much as significant suspension and was something I should shrug off. This didn’t teach me a more expansive definition of “sexual assault” but rather that groping and threats aren’t that bad and should be ignored. Why would I call lesser offenses harassment before I learned what I’d been taught wasn’t true?

Another point: I remember a recent commenter (troll?) on an FTB blog who seemed to misunderstand harassment reported with harassment reported to legal authorities. (Anyone link?) While I’m well aware these are nowhere near equivalent, it strikes me that those in charge of the conventions should make sure they know what the criminal sexual offenses are (possibly both locally and nationally?) and what legal authority they should contact if any of these occur (and under what circumstances, if any would preclude reporting). Especially (but not only) because we’re hearing that no harassment was reported (when evidently it was, though perhaps not in those words), I have serious doubts convention organizers and staff would recognize an illegal such act if they saw it.

For many participants, that paragraph may be the first description of sexual harassment they have ever encountered. It could probably be written more clearly, and I think convention staff should have additional information on hand at the office in case of need. Unfortunately, educating the attendee population about sexual harassment and assault is just beyond the scope of what convention staff can accomplish. Even a harassment training panel wouldn’t do it. I think the best event staff can do is get the concept out there, be visible and supportive, and let that experience work its way back out into the community.

That definition of harassment is leaps and bounds better than the definition listed earlier in the thread. It’s not even close. That’s where the starting point needs to be for defining harassment..now it’s probably not perfect, and there might be problems with it, but the focus really does need to be on the behavior itself and not the reaction to the individual.

Pteryxx- people without impairment are ‘Hearies’. :-D. I should have extrapolated on the specific terms used, but I was stricken with PPI -Post Pizza Impairment!

This comment wouldn’t feel complete without mentioning that physically disabled people use ‘TAB’ ( Temporarily Able Bodied) or ‘CAB’ (Currently Able Bodied) to refer to people without disabilities.

TAB was coined to make the point that, unlike characteristics such as race or gender, physical ability can be changed at any time. A fairly common idea is the one that everyone is potentially 7 seconds away from a life-altering disability.

CAB evolved from that as a more inclusive term, one that takes periodic impairment into account. Someone with MS, for example, may be fine at times, and reliant on assistive devices at others.

I’d recommend some activist-y blogs, but not many good ones exist. Ironically it’s because of the topic at hand here. CAB-privilege is apparently very hard. to reflect on. I’ve been called “crippled c*nt” for saying “Guys, don’t do that” when Redditors were bragging about only ever using the “executive stall”.

One very prominent disability rights blogger had to quit after a sustained campaign of death and rape threats, and stalking, was putting their family at risk. The reason for the. abuse? Criticising how ‘Glee’ handles disability. That’s why some people don’t ‘out’ themselves online, the ableist abuse can be astonishingly vitriolic.

A nym too, thank you for all that meaty info… The More You Know. I note disability is mentioned in the Skepticamp Ohio harassment policy, too. Do you think that’s sufficient, or should event policies include something more specific or detailed about addressing disability or providing access? (A lot of that depends on the venue.)

I stare at people, directly in their eyes or mouth. One could say I leer at them, especially when they talk. I need to, there is no way around this as I have a compulsion to do it.

Funny thing, I teach foreign languages to adults. The nature of the place means I get all kinds of people, from 16 yo who want to learn a language their school doesn’t offer to 80+ yo pensioners who want to keep their brains occupied. And I really like that. This also means that there are frequently deaf people or people hard of hearing in the group.
So far, there has never been a problem. People usually came to me first night of class and we figured out how to work things out, like optimal seating so they can see/hear me best and also to provide information to the other participants who might feel ignored if I direct my eye-contact mostly towards one person/side of the room.
I can also pretty well tell if you’re looking at my lips or at my breasts.
If you’Re unsure how to tell the difference there’s a problem with you.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been subject to street harassment. Usually I don’t mention it when I get home because it was just another cat call or wolf-whistle, or ass telling me to smile because it makes me look pretty, or complete stranger telling me he likes my ass.

For me to actually talk about it now, in a “You won’t believe what happened to me on the way home” kind of way, it has to raise above the background level of harrassment. Guys trying to intimidate me into their car would qualify. Someone groping me would qualify (as long as it wasn’t in a bar – because in this city, I’ve been groped at least once every time I’ve gone out to drink, and more often than not, more than once over the course of a night… which is why I don’t go out to drink anymore. Why should I pay a cover to be sexually assaulted and then have the bouncers brush me off?). But some random guy yelling, “Sexy!” or what have you? Nah. Just another moron on the street.

Note to the “there’s no problem w/ sexual harrassment here!” types: That stuff like this is so common we wouldn’t bother even relaying it to loved ones because it’s at the background is not a good thing. It is a bad thing that harrassment gets the emotional response of a resigned “just another asshole” out of a woman because it happens so frequently, okay? And that my response to it is “just another asshole” doesn’t mean it isn’t unacceptable behavior on their part and doesn’t mean that it impacts my perceived value in society and my perceived safety in this city.

@ joejoe

As for people with disabilities, I second what Pterryx said about being able to tell the difference between someone looking/talking at my face and at my chest. I can also tell the difference between someone looking/talking to someone else’s face and at that person’s chest. The difference between “concentrating on your face so I can understand” and “concentrating on your chest because, heh, boobs. Giggidy.” is pretty freakin’ obvious. And my emotional response varies appropriately: Staring at my face feels odd to me. Staring at my chest, waist or hips/butt? That’s creepy. There’s a big difference between, “Hmm, that’s a bit unusual.” and “Eeee, this person’s creeping me out.”

@ A nym

As someone who was disabled by severe asthma for some of my childhood and who can be disabled by attacks still, I totally want to snag CAB for my mental dictionary. Really makes the point that, yeah, I’m perfectly fine today because I’m on my meds AND I haven’t caught a cold recently AND I haven’t been exposed to smoke AND etc etc etc, but tomorrow, I might have a hard time taking a flight of stairs. In a few days (my flares tend to come on slow and recover slow), I might have a hard time walking the length of my house, if it’s a bad one. If it’s a really bad one (haven’t had one of those since I was a kid, thankfully), I might be in the hospital. So I really like the term.

It’s a shame that not many activist-y blogs exist – if they did, I’d love to read them. When my asthma started worsening in final year of undergrad (it had been mild throughout most of my teen years), the asthma blogging community was a huge help in helping me educate myself about it, since my parents didn’t really do a great job in preparing me to manage my own health as an adult or to recognize signs of my own chronic illness. Frankly, they didn’t take my illness and their responsibility to make sure their underage kid was educated on it seriously enough, so I was woefully unprepared when my breathing went pear-shaped in my final term, and the learning curve was steep and unforgiving. There is an activist group for severe asthma on Facebook. Sadly, they had to close membership to private for similar issues to what you’re talking about.

Guys trying to intimidate me into their car would qualify. Someone groping me would qualify (as long as it wasn’t in a bar – because in this city, I’ve been groped at least once every time I’ve gone out to drink, and more often than not, more than once over the course of a night… which is why I don’t go out to drink anymore.

That’s why back in the olden days before the dawn of time when I would still go clubbing I only went clubbing with my gay friends for the gay club night. I could just dance. The guys weren’t interested and the women would just ask if I were interested in a drink.
The last time I was in a “normal club” I finally put my husband (who doesn’t dance) on the middle of the dancefloor where he stood still and I danced around him. Because that obviously made me his property and you don’t argue with another guy over his titties.

Just to level set…there is a significant amount of misinformation and misconception of exactly what sexual harrassment is…I am cutting and pasting definitions below from sessions I have taught,
> sexual harrassment is clealy defined under Title 7 of the civil rights code and is almost always a workplace litigated issue
>the definition of sexual harassment is an “explosive combining of unacceptable sexual behavior and the abuse of power.” A particular incident of harassment may or may not include any explicitly sexual behavior, but it always involves some form of abuse of power.
>Many men and women believe that sexual harassment is a practice based on simple sexual attraction. It is often seen as an expression of male interest and a form of flattering sexual attention for women – a sometimes vulgar but essentially harmless romantic game, well within the range of normal, acceptable behavior between men and women.
>Harassment is not a form of courtship and it is not meant to appeal to women. It is designed to coerce women, not to attract them. When the recipient of sexual harassment has no choice in the encounter, or has reason to fear the repercussions if she declines, the interaction has moved out of the realm of invitation and courtship into the arena of intimidation and aggression.
>having inexperienced and unqualified volunteers take statements regarding harrassment issues is inappropriate and dangerous from a liable perspective
Emotions have run very deep regarding this conversation for the best of reasons. It’s important that every person in our community feels safe. But there has also been a lot of politicking, crap and hyperbole in this conversation and that has been unfortunate. Folks with opposing viewpoints have been shouted down, also unfortunate.
Please help me understand what a “safe convention looks like”. Now that we have policies in place, what else should the organizers be doing.
And lastly, I have been trained in sexual harrassment issues, written training for sexual harrassment issues, taught sexual harrassment classes, and investigated sexual harrassment and hostile work environment claims for over 30 years, so I think I’ve earned the ability to call bullshit when I read it regarding statements that are just not accurate and several of the statements proclaiming harrassment on these blogs absolutely do not rise to the level of misconduct at any level.

Eliott, a safe convention or conference (i.e., one people feel safe attending) is one with a highly visible harassment policy, where attendees know how to easily identify or find staff (which may be volunteer) if they need to and where that staff has clear expectations on how to handle levels of reports that range from discomfort to a lack of physical safety. It takes some work and some planning, but it’s really not rocket science.

@Gillel: I go to the gay bar in town (there’s only one, sadly), and I still get groped. Because the creepers realized a few years ago that women were going to the gay bars as a safe space and apparently, their desire to creep on women outweighs their homophobia. And the bouncers there don’t believe that I got groped by a dude because “this is a gay bar, Miss”. Rrrg. It was a fun place before the creepers moved in. Now it’s just another bar (albeit one with karaoke and better-than-average music).

Elliott, you say: “Folks with opposing viewpoints have been shouted down, also unfortunate.”

Where, exactly? Are you sure they were “shouted down” as opposed to vehemently disagreed with? Isn’t vibrant disagreement what skeptics should WANT? What I’ve seen is people making claims about low incidence of harassment, and others responding by citing scholarly research on why their conclusions about harassment are invalid. Furthermore, if someone vehemently disagrees with you, and you can’t answer their objections, you weren’t “shouted down”–you were just wrong.

Finally, this quote shows a pretty shocking insensitivity toward women’s experiences: “several of the statements proclaiming harrassment on these blogs absolutely do not rise to the level of misconduct at any level.” You do realize, don’t you, that things don’t actually have to be ILLEGAL for them to be acutely unpleasant for the person receiving them? You do realize, don’t you, that I’m not going to pay money to put myself in a situation where people are being repeatedly marginalizing, offensive, inconsiderate, and demeaning of me and my contributions–just so long as it doesn’t officially qualify as something I can actually report? I will rather spend my time and money with decent human beings.

Stephanie…thank you for taking the time to respond. In an effort to create a template and To ensure complete understanding, could you please drill down a bit and tell me who would train the staff in the clear expectations and level of reports you mentioned and what an example of that would look like from time of incident.

LeftSidePositive…thank you for your response. In my view people can have opposing points of view and still be treated with respect. I find that lacking. As to your second point, there were inaccurate statements made calling out specific instances as rising to the level of sexual harrassment which do not cross that threshold. I never addressed that fact of whether or not they were unpleasant. They are not dissecting issues. Please don’t put words in my mouth.
Stephanie…I actually have already but in an effort to be inclusive thought it would be in the communities best interest to get additional perspective. Because you have taken a lead in this I thought you might have some specific thoughts regarding how this process should be executed to be user friendly. Obviously not based on your feedback. My bad. Thank you for your response.

I second Stephanie: ours is to identify the problem as existing, demand that steps be taken, and propose those steps to the best of our abilities. If those steps have to be further refined once implemented, nobody’s going to be upset about it.

Making a safe space is paramount. Making sure everyone understands what a “safe space” actually means, can be our job. Making sure the convention actually creates that space with all the legalities that might or might not be involved, that’s theirs. Or it can be ours too, if any of us have that skillset.

I’ll say further that as organizers of basically community-run, volunteer-staffed events, event organizers have a different level of responsibility to attendees than the responsibility of employers or universities to provide a safe workspace under existing law. An event CAN expect its participants to adhere to a code of conduct, and can enforce that code upon incidents that do not rise to a legally enforceable level of severity.

Elliott–your response: “In my view people can have opposing points of view and still be treated with respect. I find that lacking” has absolutely no substantiation whatsoever. I said (and I quote) “where, exactly?” When I say exactly, I mean EXACTLY. Provide links or quotes. You made a claim that people are being shouted down. I disagree, and I asked for evidence. This should not be difficult evidence to provide, since these are publicly-made posts that are saved perpetually on a forum. Nor should I have to comb through a bunch of posts to imagine what you meant by shouting down, because I cannot read your mind. I may or may not agree with what you ultimately provide as evidence of “shouting down,” or I may agree with qualifications, but I cannot make any judgment on it until you provide substantive material for discussion.

Secondly, if you agree that these instances of poor behavior are unpleasant, don’t you agree that this is A PROBLEM? I don’t see what your point is–if someone says that behavior is making them feel marginalized, uncomfortable, and like they cannot participate happily in the skeptic movement, what POSSIBLE justification could there be in pedantically pointing out that these instances don’t “rise to the level” of harassment? Was this an instance where someone specifically said this behavior should be reported to authorities? Was it behavior that someone specifically said should result in the revocation of a conference pass? Without those criteria, whether or not it meets the official level of harassment is IRRELEVANT–it shows that there is a significant problem with sexism in the movement. (Furthermore, a good harassment policy should have a “grey zone” wherein the conference organizers will formally speak to someone whose behavior is sub-threshold and make it clear they disapprove…even if it isn’t enough to merit any type of disciplinary action.)

One way to look at it is that conference harassment policies are designed to address “chilly climate” level concerns, not incidents at the legal or criminal level. Convention staff’s responsibility then is to support victims who wish to pursue such action.

I actually have already but in an effort to be inclusive thought it would be in the communities best interest to get additional perspective. Because you have taken a lead in this I thought you might have some specific thoughts regarding how this process should be executed to be user friendly. Obviously not based on your feedback. My bad. Thank you for your response.

I have plenty of ideas about how this could be done. For any given event, the answer will be different because the structure of the organization putting on the event will be different. If you have a concern about an event you’re considering attending, ask an organizer. If you’re not, I really have much more to do right now than provide some sort of exhaustive list because you are concerned.

Stephanie, thank you for being candid in sharing your thoughts. I’ll take the same courtesy. Just so I understand your note, you have ideas that are potentially remedial, prescriptive and hygienic driven by event structure but you have more to do right now than share them with me because I’m concerned. I was under the impression I and about half the attendees were concerned.

Elliott, did it ever occur to you that she might be more interested in spending her time discussing these ideas with people who have the power to implement them and have specific organizations to which they can be tailored, or as a stand-alone analysis in a more in-depth blog post for a wider audience, rather than personally educatingyou?

Off topic, ischemgeek, but on the asthma side would you mind giving some references for those good asthma blogging sites/reading materials? I’m quite similar to you it seems, except that in my case it’s recent adult onset, so I’m still on my learning curve.

LeftSidePositive…sometimes life gets in the way….thank you for correcting the spelling of my name but I am not on the gas about that…let me explain how I play in the blogs…
You misrepresented what I said…Once you did you alleviated my obligation of response but I wanted to add some clarity.
You don’t need to go any further than your response on #87 that exemplifies my point. It is a rude, pretentionious and uninformed note. It was meant specifically as put down. Congratulations, you got me.
I choose not to continue.

You are absolved of the responsibility of substantiating a claim by claiming I misrepresented you? I don’t think I’ve heard that rule before…it sounds like total bollocks!…and even if it WERE true (which I’m not conceding!), don’t you at least have to make a case for what the true interpretation would be?

By your logic, I’m guessing this is acceptable:

A: The Earth is flat!
B: So…do you have any evidence the Earth is flat?
A: YOU MISREPRESENTED ME!!!
B: Okay, so what do you mean, and how can I tell if it’s true?
A: I WIN I WIN I WIN!!!

I hope you can see how this is problematic.

You said “folks with opposing viewpoints have been shouted down”–that is a simple declarative statement. HOW did I misrepresent it?! HOW THE FUCK is that **possible** to misrepresent?! Seriously–fucking HOW??

(And, to make myself very clear, I’m not “shouting [you] down” for your opposing viewpoint–I’m shouting at you in sheer gobsmacked frustration for your blatantly evasive tactics for which I cannot conceive of another cause than intellectual dishonesty. Intellectual dishonesty is not an opposing viewpoint. It is a poisoning of debate.)

And don’t tone troll me about calling you out on your behavior. You committed an egregious breach of forum etiquette by insisting that another poster take time to educate you personally and cater her strategizing of real-world problems to YOUR hypotheticals, and you were told TWICE that this was inappropriate and by no means even an effective way to answer these details if you really wanted them answered, and tried to guilt her into spending more of her time and effort on you. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. So yes, I called out your poor behavior in a snarky manner–why the fuck shouldn’t I? Your rude demands on someone else’s time and attention are WAY more rude than pointing out the taxonomy of your particular self-entitled behavior. I’m sorry, but you don’t get to be so presumptuous and then presume to tell us how we may respond to your presumptuousness…

You have shown that you will use superficial concern for the tone as a dodge to avoid actually defending your claim. This is rude, it is dishonest, and it is tiresome.

Jason…just look at the blog you posted tonight . There are 3 different people that were shouted down because of opposing views and then Stephanie calls a guy an idiot. There is a lot if anger there clouding good judgement. These blogs are becoming an artform of insulting each other. Just look at the note above yours on this blog. Why on earth would anyone think that is ok. How does that get us closer to an answer to a very serious issue that you have taken the initiative of driving
Please, stop this drum beat of beating up DJ. It is counter productive and gets us nothing. If he makes intemperate remarks inertia will ultimately catch up to him. This is not the way to do it with name calling.
These are serious issues and in my view that post tonight makes our community look foolish and small.
Jason, please, you can turn this conversation into a more positive statement about protecting women and advance this throughout the community. Stop being pissed off and help get answers. Throwing darts at DJ isn’t the answer.
Helping to conceive a code of conduct policy, asking for feedback of what that might look like, opinions of acceptable behavior, opinions of unacceptable behavior and many other issues. Get feedback from your audience. They are a great huge resource. They respect you. Aggregate the information on an ongoing basis. Make it an organic document.
I’m an old man with outdated views like courtesy and respect that were sorely lacking tonight. You can have a positive affect on this issue. I hope you do.

Why on earth would anyone think that “find proof” or shut up is okay? Gee…I dunno…BECAUSE IT’S FUCKING SKEPTICISM?!!?!!?

You are so fucking desperate to stick to your false equivalence that you’ll try to pretend that calling out a logical fallacy is a shocking breach of etiquette on a fucking skeptic’s forum?! Seriously?! Look, dude…no one is that fucking stupid, and if this is the best you can do, I’m not impressed.

And, may I remind you, THAT YOU HAVE NOT PROVIDED A SINGLE FUCKING PROOF OF YOUR CLAIM?!

Based on your reasoning so far I have extraordinarily little faith in your ability to distinguish between “shouting someone down for opposing views” and “calling out totally disingenuous, unsupported, dishonest, and/or bigoted bullshit.” If someone is spouting such bullshit, or is being a FUCKING POMPOUS ASSHAT by trying to drag the level of the conversation down to “Oh, heavens–dirty words!–I have the vapors!!” when we have every right to discuss major issues how WE feel is necessary, then it is not the “opposing views” that are getting called out…IT IS THE UTTER FUCKING INEPTITUDE AND LYING HORSESHIT that is being vehemently opposed.

Furthermore, what the fuck is this “drum beat of beating up on DJ”?! He has said some VERY sexist, dishonest, marginalizing, rape-apologistic bullshit and he deserves to be criticized for it. This is how we prevent ourselves from turning into the bargain barrel of the marketplace of ideas.

And if he makes intemperate remarks? IF? Motherfucking shit, he BLAMED HARASSMENT VICTIMS. That’s pretty fucking high on the “intemperate” scale! And you say it “will catch up to him”? HOW, may I ask, if you’re going to tone troll the shit out of everyone who is holding him accountable? IT IS CATCHING UP TO HIM NOW.

And what the fuck are your qualifications to tell us what is and isn’t the answer?

Furthermore, GO FUCK YOURSELF for so sagely telling us all the things we’re supposed to be doing–in your infinite fucking wisdom–that we are in fact already doing, and we have been investing a great deal of time, energy, and research in this endeavor. Where the fuck do you get off swanning in and telling us how to be productive when we’re actually BEING FUCKING PRODUCTIVE and you’re whining about tone like a spoiled 3-year-old?! Your condescending assholery and your willful disregard of the commitment to positive change (and let’s be clear–tone trolling is a tactic to delay progress) is WAY more offensive than any number of fucks I could possibly fit into this post.

And if you think being a disingenuous, condescending, passive-aggressive wankstain is showing “courtesy and respect,” or if your priorities are so imbecilic that you care more about words than IDEAS, then I cordially invite you to partake of several Onanistic impossibilities within your own lower gastrointestinal tract.

LeftSidePositive….thank you for your heartfelt response. My, my aren’t we judgemental. We have different perspectives you and I. You asked my qualification and I think that’s fair. It’s from having actually investigated sexual harrassment cases for 30 years, helping victims and knowing the difference. Yours is…well I don’t have a clue what yours is. Maybe the response on the above is your impression of how to get things done, it’s not mine. My way was the appeal I made to Jason. He has the choice to go down that path or not. And as a point if fact, I have taken steps to help the community with this issue.
If insulting me makes you feel better about yourself, then I have done my good deed for the day.
I have no intention of reading anything else you write or responding to you ever again.
Have a nice life.
By the way, I’m impressed with you vocabulary but syntax could use some work.

These are serious issues and in my view that post tonight makes our community look foolish and small.

No, tone trolling and policing other people’s reactions while avoiding substantiating your own arguments makes our community look foolish and small. And acting like harsh language is a good reason to ignore the substance of what someone is saying helps others feel justified in ignoring us.

I’m an old man with outdated views like courtesy and respect that were sorely lacking tonight.

You have a superficial understanding of courtesy and respect. It’s not respectful to tell people not to get angry or to pretend that anger is counterproductive. It’s not courteous to talk down to people and tell them to do things they’re already doing just because you don’t like the way it’s playing out. I’ve way more respect for the people who can issue their opponents a solid “fuck you” than weasels like you who pretend that merely avoiding cuss words makes them the nice guys.

I would think that courtesy and respect would also entail not demanding that people immediately educate you on things you could Google easily for yourself, and not making accusations or claims that you can’t or won’t back up with evidence. I would think that courtesy and respect would entail arguing with someone in good faith, not tossing out red herrings and non sequiturs when pressed to support your positions.

Tom Foss and A. Noyd: didn’t you get the memo? When someone, anyone, airdrops into a forum of any sort, especially one where all the conversants are mostly up to speed about a great number of things, it is their job to rehash everything that’s happened up til that point — not just in the community, but in the greater societal struggle at large.

I swear, these people are spoiled by those “last time, on Stargate” recaps at the beginning of the episode.

A.Noyd@99, thank you for your response. So, first you tell me I’m tone trolling and then you tell me what I do and don’t understand. Yes, I did not in my view find that the conversation was courteous or respectful, and interestingly now your are telling me how to act or how I should react. So how is your behavior to my reaction different.? Now, you noting that I only have a superficial understanding of courtesy and respect when you don’t know me is almost psychic. Maybe you can get that million dollars from Randi. Oh, and calling me a weasel, nice touch.
Tom Foss@100, thank you for your feedback. Tom, I was requesting feedback based on experience that I don’t think Google would supply, I was asking for feedback from her quote which I based on her experience with organizations. I wasn’t looking to be educated on harrassment per se or those processes. Please see below. By the way, I did cite examples.
Stephanie@102…I worked with an organization about 2 weeks ago giving ideas on developing a policy and have put a note on Greta’s blog today. I think it’s #2. As for a track record, about 30 years of sexual harrassment experience in conceiving, developing, training and executing harrassment programs for major orgaizations as well as investiging sexual harrassment, hostile work environment and assault cases. I wasn’t looking for education from you when I asked for feedback, just information to try and help. I probably failed at asking as well as I should have. The comment about rocket science got my back up because it can be as complex as rocket science: ie: under reporting or no reporting. I should have asked for that better.

Yes, I did not in my view find that the conversation was courteous or respectful, and interestingly now your are telling me how to act or how I should react.

No, telling people how to act and react is what you’re doing to us. (“Please, stop this drum beat of beating up DJ.” “Jason, please, you can turn this conversation into a more positive statement about protecting women and advance this throughout the community. Stop being pissed off and help get answers.” Etc.) Bizarrely, you seem to identify this is discourteous and disrespectful when you imagine I’m doing it to you. But I’m not. Go ahead, show me I’m wrong by quoting where I did so. I’ll hold off on addressing the rest of your reply—such as it is—till you either show I said anything of the sort or apologize for your false accusation.

I’ve got to wonder–IS there anything to Eliott’s insistence that he’s useful, or is he just using that to tone troll? We saw a bit of this with the “well, it doesn’t rise to the level of harassment”…which basically indicates he’s looking at this from a myopic corporate understanding that has everything to do with liability issues and *nothing* to with making a space that’s actually enjoyable for women to want to spend time voluntarily.

And when he says “helping victims and knowing the difference…” am I the only one who sees this HUGE red flag waving?! I mean really? This “knowing the difference” shouts of doubt, judging, and insisting someone’s concerns be “real enough”…not something I can respect, frankly–fine for legal standards for the working world, but nothing like actually enlightened thinking!

Oh, but I do love that he’s upset that we’re “judgmental”–seriously, Eliott, how much proof do we NEED before we can adequately describe you as a pompous ass? You know that presumption you have that you won’t be called out on your bullshit? That’s called privilege, and that currency’s no good around here.

Because LeftSidePositive was upset that none of his points were being engaged on? Is it possible for just one person to shout down something? Is it possible that Eliott was not, in fact, helping the situation but was engaging in “Just Asking Questions”?

I’m going to assume “no, yes, and no”. So the further question here is: what could change your mind?

I think “hyper-skepticism” is a misnomer, like “pro-life” or “men’s rights advocate.” They’re not being “skeptical,” they’re being denialist. At best, they’re exercising skepticism extremely selectively, and that’s a more substantive charge to lay against them than “too skeptical.” How about “selepticism?”

Apparently we are to call those with ‘pretty good’ ‘points’ to make trolls. Can you guys ever respond to a good point with calm rationality as opposed to paranoid schizophrenia?

The irony of someone using a mental illness/disability as a slur while attempting to make people feel ashamed for supposedly being insufficiency accommodating to those with disabilities is painful.

@xtog42:

I sincerely hope that your “masters degree in psychology” hasn’t lead you to dealing with individuals who are actually mentally ill/disabled. Because your cruel use of mental illness/disability as a weapon against neurotically is blindingly inappropriate and an indicator of an inability to view people with mental illness/disabilities as full humans who deserve respect, kindness, and support.

I didn’t choose to have a mental illness/disability. I don’t like having it. I want it to go away. I don’t want to deal with it. I don’t like suffering side effects from the medication I take to treat it. But I don’t have that choice, and I do not appreciate being minimized because I have it. I don’t like it when people treat mental disability/illness like it’s some kind of character flaw.

So, please, take the plank out of your own eye before going after the mote in your brothers eye. Control your own negative treatment of those with disabilities before you rag on other people for supposedly doing what you are doing.

I wonder why hyper denialists can’t see that propositioning people out of the blue in non-sexy situations & conversations is rude and that persisting in that behavior with the same or other people is harassing? That it deserves a warning and, if continued, further action to remove them from the people they’re bothering?

While reading this I had an idea to counter the MRAs with a similar acronym for men who know they’re overprivileged idiots: MAWR, Male Activist for Women’s Rights. (Currently Google suggests Bryn Mawr College is what I’m thinking.)

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